Chinese science journals issue ethics codes

Over 1,000 Chinese science journals on Tuesday issued a joint declaration against academic misconduct including plagiarism and fabrication.

The 1,050 journals in question are all administered by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), the largest national non-governmental organization of scientific and technological professionals in China.

In the declaration, publishers agreed not to publish any articles involved with academic misconduct and to punish editors who have knowingly published plagiarized articles, or misused their positions.

A previous CAST survey said that a considerable portion of the scientific community believed that levels of professional ethics and academic integrity are "generally dropping," which has been an obstacle to the country's strategic move towards independent innovation.

China has over 5,300 registered science journals, however their quality is still incompatible with the requirements of China's national innovative mechanism, said You Suning, president of the Chinese Medicine Association Publishing House.

CAST has 79 science journals in English, with 70 of them being selected as source journals by Science Citation Index (SCI) in 2011.